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Comment by great_psy | Hacker News Reader

I have been using the Apple manager since LastPass got hacked recently.

Hot take , but … I like the lack of integration in other operating systems/ browsers.

I see my phone as a Secure Enclave, and my passwords should be disconnected from potentially insecure systems. I see the phone as those keychain one time passwords where you have to press a physical button to get a key.

Is it inconvenient to get a password, yes. But it offers the piece of mind that I only have to worry about iPhone/Apple exploits, instead of chrome+firefox+windows+Linux+Apple+iphone.

I don’t think in this case Apple is not doing the integration because of this security feature, but I think it is a feature non the less. Of course you can always choose not to install the extensions even if they existed, but the point is that if they existed it would lower security.

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This was precisely what drove me off Apple password manager. If your iPhone were compromised, such as in those iPhone unlocking scams[1] (something quite common here in Brazil at least since 2021), it's game over for your entire password database.

I've been using KeePass apps (MacPass on macOS, KeePassium no iOS), with a different, unique master password, unlogged by default on iPhone, plus DB locks automatically after 10 minutes of inactivity.

Maybe I'm way off, but it seems safer to me.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-iphone-security-theft-pas...

Absolutely. Given these reports, Apple's security model isn't close to being sophisticated enough to warrant trusting them with passwords or (even more critically, arguably) WebAuthN passkeys.

I recently saw it with my own eyes as a family member was able to reset their iCloud password and gain full access to their account on a new device, including iCloud Keychain, using nothing but their iPad and the corresponding unlocking code. No iCloud password, no SMS-2FA (not that it would help much in the case of a stolen iPhone), nothing else.

Incidentally this is the method my 6 year old nephew used to reset his mom’s Apple ID password so he could make in-app purchases. He figured it out on his own and then spent $3000 in a couple days. His mom had been very careful with her password but when he wanted a code on his iPad she thought it was harmless—she certainly never expected that he could get all the way to changing her password with nothing more than the lock code! Took her months to sort it out.

Can you explain how this hack would work ?

Would someone need to steal two of your devices ?

I was under the assumption that you need to be logged in with touchid/faceid/pin code to get the unlock code

The attack in this case would be somebody shoulder-surfing your PIN and grabbing your device.

They then have everything they need to take over your iCloud account (kicking you out of it in the process by resetting all other devices capable of resetting it) and can see all your passwords stored in it, as well as use all of your WebAuthN passkeys.

I'm not sure if having a recovery code would improve that situation, but I'd guess that many people don't.

Ah ok, yes the shoulder surfing is definitely a problem.

Hard to mitigate somebody looking over your shoulder, this is the case with most password managers, but I understand why this is a more likely scenario.

In a semi-safe situation (e.g. on busy public transit or in a crowded place with people behind me), I do sometimes unlock my password manager using Face ID to access a website, but I'd never enter my passphrase if the biometric unlock fails.

If somebody watches me enter my passcode and then rips the device out of my hands and runs off with it (assuming the password manager is not open), they now have access to most of the content on my phone, but importantly not the parts protected by Face ID, which includes the password manager.

If I had used Apple's password manager instead, they'd be able to recover all passwords (using the tactics described above or simply enrolling their own face in Face ID, which is possible using only the passcode).

I have an iPhone and while I understand that Face ID probably has fewer false positives than fingerprint recognition, I really miss the physical rear sensor on my Pixel 2. I don't know what the collision rate is, or how easy it would be to break if someone stole the phone, but it was a really great user experience: haptic feedback is good, it was/is incredibly reliable at unlocking and it was useful because you could pass your phone to a partner/passenger in a car and unlock without looking (i.e. no more unsafe than changing the cabin temp) and no need to share your pin if with a stranger. I think the only time it failed was after climbing with chalky fingers.

If you reset/create an alternate appearance for faceid does that force a manual login for the services that use it? Because your device passcode lets you change all the faceid stuff… too lazy to mess around with it myself

Apps can choose [1] to tie have keys to the current set of enrolled biometric credentials (i.e. faces or fingers), and at least my password manager does that, as far as I remember from some testing.

Some apps don't, and some even react really poorly to a change of the biometric set (i.e. crashing at every Face ID use with no way to reset other than reinstalling), so I'm also not too keen on testing this on my main device.

One thing that surprised me during my limited testing was that Apple apparently doesn't make use of this capability for storing the "encrypted notes" passphrase, which effectively also reduces the security of that to that of the device passcode.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/secaccess...

I saw advice here a while back about using Screen Time to block PIN and Account updates. This gives you a separate PIN to protect those, so theoretically if someone shoulder surfs your phone PIN they can’t take over your iCloud account.

I use this trick. It's an added layer of security, although a weak one — Screen Time PIN is four digit-mandatory — and a workaround — as in: not made for security purposes.

Thing is, even within these constraints it has rough edges.

If you have two accounts (let's say a personal one and work/family/org one), getting passwords for the second account will just be a PITA.

Same issue of course if you need someone else's password (e.g. your spouse's hotel reservation account's password)

Trying to work this around means you'll either be asking people's passwords other the phone or other means, or you'll often switch between accounts and will want lower security on the account themselves as the identification process get old very quick. Basically, these limitations are not without impact on security and how people will deal with them.

don't lose or break your phone....

I have my old iPhone with no sim that I mostly take to the gym to protect the new one.

How do you access your passwords on your new iPhone from your old iPhone?

Oh, they're stored online? There goes your entire "secure enclave" argument ;-)

>I have my old iPhone with no sim that I mostly take to the gym to protect the new one.

What is the other one doing in the gym, unprotected?

One at home, one with me for Spotify in my pocket.

iCloud solves that.

Unless Apple ever starts following Google's lead to ban accounts for any infraction and you don't store backups...

Not saying Apple is doing that now, but I imagine it's not outside the realm of possibility.

We can use the same argument for any other cloud password manager. If google/Apple blocks my access, well it’s those services I am trying to log into in the first place so the point is moot.

Also I have recovery keys for the more important accounts printed and stored in a safe box.

I agree, perhaps I should have emphasized that my point of view is that anyone should back up anything stored on the cloud.

Which I'm glad to know you can at least do with Keychain [1], although I use Bitwarden myself.

[1] https://support.apple.com/guide/keychain-access/import-and-e...

Except password managers that YOU need to take care your vault, like KeePassXC.

I used keePass before LastPass, but the issue was with keeping the file synced. I had it in Dropbox and I was able to open it no problem from the phone, but making updates from phone was a challenge. Maybe I was not using a good app but it was a hassle to keep it synchronized.

But anyway, somebody could cut off your access to Dropbox, but it’s less of an issues since you have a backup.

I simply don’t sync my vault. I don’t add or change passwords very often, so I treat the vault in my computer as a “main copy” and once a week, during my backup routine, I copy the current vault to my phone. Never had an issue.